Blasphemy laws: politics far from God's intentions

Pakistani Christians shout slogans against the killing of Christian government minister Shahbaz Bhatti, during a protest in Islamabad on March 3, 2011. Pakistan announced three days of national mourning and vowed "fool-proof" security after a Christian Pakistani government minister who decried Islamic blasphemy laws was gunned down.

Aamir Qureshi: AFP

Pakistan's blasphemy laws are more than just a case of crazed religious fanaticism. There is a political context that goes back to the last days of the Cold War, writes Irfan Yusuf.

Rimsha Masih, an illiterate 14-year-old girl, lives in hiding with her family in a secret location somewhere in Pakistan.

She was released on bail after being charged with a blasphemy offence under Pakistan's Penal Code. In a nearby prison, the illiterate farmhand Asia Bibi languishes in prison awaiting her appeal against a death sentence imposed on her after she allegedly insulted Islam.

Both accused are from Pakistan's minority Christian community.

We in the West look on as horrified spectators. How could this happen at the beginning of the 21st century? Millions of Pakistanis inside and outside the country are also horrified. Yet they also know that this is more than just a case of crazed religious fanaticism. There is a political context that goes back to the last days of the Cold War when Pakistan was busy fighting the West's battles.

That was when the real enemy was not so much a form of theocratic Islam as an evil empire known as the Soviet Union. Communists were forever hatching nasty conspiracies, and anyone who was an enemy of communism was our friend.

In 1979, the Soviet army marched into Afghanistan. In response, then-US president Reagan openly embraced the various Afghan jihadi factions as "freedom fighters", welcoming them to the White House. His biggest ally in Asia at the time was Pakistan's military dictator general Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq.

General Zia embarked upon an ambitious program of "Islamisation". I spent some time in Pakistan as a wee lad during the early 1980s. I remember female newsreaders covering their hair. I remember watching A Town Like Alice at my aunt's place, edited so that even a hint of kissing or hugging was cut out. Women stopped wearing saris. The compulsory zakat religious tax was being directly deducted from people's wages unless they could show they were of the Shiah sect and hence exempt. It was a popular joke at the time that Shiite imams were making a killing selling statutory declarations stating that lifelong Sunnis were in fact devout Shiites for the term of their natural life.

Jihad rallies were taking place across the country, and attending a jihad training camp was akin to attending scouts. But the biggest changes were in the penal system. Public floggings were shown on prime time news. New laws were introduced and new offences were created which selectively implemented a version of God's law that maximised the potential devilish acts against anyone deemed opposed to the regime.

Among these laws were the notorious blasphemy laws, introduced into Pakistan's penal code in 2006. The laws include provisions designed to protect the religious sensibilities of all religions in Pakistan. However, offences against the Islamic faith carry the most stringent penalties.

Worse still, merely being charged with a blasphemy offence can carry its own sentence, often carried out by violent vigilante mobs. One Pakistani lawyer provides this description of the mob mentality:

While several individuals have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, no one has yet been executed for the crime. A significant number, however, have been murdered after the accusation or during imprisonment after the conviction. On August 1, 2009 forty houses and a Church were set ablaze by a mob in the town of Gojra, Punjab. Nine Christians were burnt alive. The attacks were triggered by reports of desecration of the Qur'an. The local police had already registered a case under section 295 of the Pakistan Penal Code against three Christians for blasphemy. Hence a conviction or even an accusation under a blasphemy law provision is often a death sentence in itself.

Few Pakistanis are prepared to openly defend those wrongfully accused or call for the blasphemy laws to be amended or repealed. One who did was Punjab governor Salman Taseer, gunned down by one of his bodyguards in January 2011 after describing the anti-blasphemy legislation "a black law".

Before his assassination, Taseer visited Asia Bibi. By this time, she had spent some 18 months in custody. Taseer told a packed news conference that Asia Bibi's punishment was "harsh and oppressive". He produced an appeal for a presidential pardon. He also described the prosecution (or rather persecution) of impoverished religious minorities through blasphemy laws as a mockery of Pakistan's Islamic heritage and the legacy of Pakistan's founders. Taseer's assassin was openly hailed by religious parties and even by large elements of Pakistan's liberal legal fraternity as a hero.

The vigilante justice continued. Two months after Taseer's murder, Pakistan's minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti was gunned down in Islamabad. The only Christian in Pakistan's cabinet, he also actively campaigned to reform the blasphemy laws.

Both Taseer and Bhatti were aware of how frequently blasphemy laws were used against members of impoverished minority communities to settle personal scores. The implementation of unjust laws is leading to an almost complete breakdown of the rule of law. One doubts this was the outcome God intended.

Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney-based workplace relations lawyer and freelance columnist/writer. View his full profile here.